Mick Freeman

I still carry deep emotional scars from my upbringing. I never felt like I fit in at school, not helped by the fact that my clothes came from jumble sales.

I was attracted to music when my parents were caretakers at the village institute.

My mother felt the need to protect me from my father by taking me with her where ever she went so I was exposed to the adult world - through my mother- very early on.

If she was cleaning at the Institute, I would be ’donging’ on the piano.

Contact with local farmers taught me to wheel and deal and I knew how to make a shilling.

I got my first guitar by swapping an old air gun but my first real purchase was an accordion for 2.

Although confidence was a huge factor, I did become The Misfit Music Man.